A Nanny Story

In 1977, before the complex was fully renovated, all Pac orgs sent their EPF to one central Estates org for EPF training, the Pac Training Org. The lineup was fairly long and all recruits were required to complete a series of classes called Product 0 minimally, but ideally also complete both Product 1 and Product 2. The EPF was at its largest then, about 300 young people strong, and twice a day we had a huge EPF muster in Lebanon Hall.

One day, at the 3:00 muster, there was an announcement about a dire situation at the Child Estates Org where the children did not have adequate nannies and a call was made for volunteers. My friends tried to dissuade me, said I'd never get out of there, but I volunteered anyway. I was 16 then, a runaway, and completely green to Scientology.

On my first day, there were so many EPF there that the staff were scrambling to train and organise it all. So I was asked if I wanted to take a walk and see the other nurseries. This was when COS still owned the Melrose Ave building, before the children were moved to Fountain Avenue, and all the Sea Org nurseries were there, where we were bussed back and forth every day from the horseshoe entrance at Lebanon Hall.

Mostly the nurseries looked the same - wall to wall cribs, children spending most of their days in them, severely overcrowded nurseries with babies with propped up bottles and the smells of bleach, urine and dirty nappies. So I went down the halls and looked. One nursery was so different, though, that my eyes lit up and jaw dropped. One infant nursery had far less children and was exceedingly calm and peaceful. (To be continued)

It was an account of the conditions in St. Hill, hm, I think from a disenchanted person in the '70's, that originally got Hubbard's psychotic confabulation onto my personal radar. I'm not sure if I have the links on this PC, I'll look, but basically it was one of the saddest stories of just utter child neglect (ex's should not be surprised by that eh), starving, neglected lice-infested children, torn from their parent's care for days, weeks, months... then .... cold... as "Dr." Hubbard cut off their heating. Fuck.
Anyone got the articles on this? If so, do post 'em!

The hallways at Melrose Child Care were carpeted with a multi-stained, bleached, discoloured, flat, tacked thing of unrecognisable color. And yet there were children running or walking around barefoot. The nursery bathrooms had loose tiles, leaking pipes and leaking toilets. Fungus grew behind the wet tiles and between them and in the walls themselves. And so there were cockroaches in the bathrooms and the walls. The entire building was infested. Bleach kept the buggers at bay, but bathroom doors were kept closed with towels stuffed under them to keep the roaches out of the nurseries. Maintenance was a joke.

At bath time, nannies used small child tubs to avoid making the tub walls worse. Nurseries had linoleum flooring, often torn in spots and very worn.

The building was a slum. it was a lot to take in and my head was spinning. Why were the children in this terrible place? I wondered.

So went my tour. But I was about to mention the weirdly nice nursery.

Just before it was Dori's nursery, which until then, was the nicest one yet. She had 5-6 infants sleeping lightly and she was friendly and sweet but tense. She said hello, and I asked her if that was all the kids she had? No, said Dori (also an EPFer, about 20 years old), she had another 5 down the hallway. She said she had to go check on them and left.

The next nursery, as I began my story, was exceptional. Like it didn't even belong there.

It's odd, sometimes, the things we remember throughout our lives. We remember the firsts: our first days at school, first kiss, first fight. We remember shocks, like a family member dying, living through earthquakes, floods and fires. We remember the smell of dew on grass in the morning and the smell of cancer or gangrene. We remember embarrassment, elation, loss and victory. Between all those things are the routines, the usual, and it is the routines we forget. We remember the unusual, though, and sometimes we also remember the profound.

A young man sat in a chair outside a nursery with sleeping children. He was writing, but alert as I walked up to him.shhhh! He said, barely audible. They're sleeping!

i softly apologised and asked the man if I could just have one quick peak? He looked at me skeptically and grudgingly agreed.

i remember that day as if it was yesterday. I remember that man, that nursery and those children as if I was just there. The others' nurseries, except Dori's next door became a blur over time, but I remember that nursery because what I saw was too beautiful to ever forget.

There were 5-6 children, all deeply asleep. It was their expressions that got me, the way their bodies were positioned. They'd all been wrapped in blankets just so, not too tight or loose. There were no worry lines on their faces and every child smiled. Each had a favourite soft animal or pillow or things - every crib was individualised, like a child's own tailored world . I didn't smell bleach or cleaners, either, just sweet, clean baby.

Then the young man explained to me that this child liked this animal and little details about each one, but I was barely listening. I couldn't get my eyes off their faces. They were happy, calm, blissful even. They knew they were completely safe and loved. They felt secure and serene in that comfort. Every single face in that nursery, every little body expressed that security, that comfort, that peace and tranquility. It was profound, and in that building under those conditions, like a miracle, a sliver of heaven down grunge hallway.

The man was hussling me out of the nursery now. He was very protective. He told me I had to leave and he had reports to write.

i asked him his name . He said it was Michael but don't call him Mike. Everyone always just called him by his last name anyway.

Here is some supporting material for Sheila's story:
_____http://warrior.xenu.ca/1997-0707.html
Re: $cientology "school" [07 Jul 1997]
Sea Org members had no time -- or money -- to look after their children.
_____http://warrior.xenu.ca/1997-0525.html
Re: Scientology lied to me over and over for years [25 May 1997]
How I found, upon reporting to the Sea Org after an arduous journey, that I had been lied to about the Sea Org's facilities for child care.
_____http://warrior.xenu.ca/1997-0417.html
Sea Org hours, "pay", children's conditions and other degradation... [17 Apr 1997]
During my years in the SO, I worked a minimum of 96 hours per week. Often I worked as much as 108 hours in a week. And my pay actually averaged about 10 cents per hour, since when I joined the SO, base pay per Flag Order 3075 of 18 November 1971 was $10 per week.
_____http://warrior.xenu.ca/1997-0415b.html
Re: SO children [15 Apr 1997]
My own child was in pre-school at the Cadet Org. The preparation for first grade was non-existent with the constant turnover of untrained and unqualified personnel (who were mostly cast-offs that the other orgs didn't want on staff as they were "DBs" - degraded beings). My kid ended up failing the first grade.
_____http://warrior.xenu.ca/1997-0415a.html
Re: Sea Org Children again [15 Apr 1997]
In my Sea Org days, such heavy demand (and often threat) was made for staff to get their stats up that many staff did not go on their "family time" and visit their children.
_____http://warrior.xenu.ca/1997-0410.html
PAC CADET ORG / CADET ESTATES ORG ESTABLISHMENT EVAL [10 Apr 1997]
For an organization whose Founder ElRon said that the "children are our future", I never saw the management demonstrate that it truly cared.
_____http://warrior.xenu.ca/1996-1224.html
Cover-up of illegalities in Cadet Org [24 Dec 1996]
WHY is it that a group that SUPPOSEDLY CARES so much about the future of
this planet, and which states that the children ARE our future, could this
same group tolerate such sub-human conditions for their children?
_____http://warrior.xenu.ca/1996-1219.html
Neglect of children in Sea Org [19 Dec 1996]
An excerpt from Aides Order 203-71, "PAC CADET ORG/CADET ESTATES ORG ESTABLISHMENT EVAL"
_____http://warrior.xenu.ca/1996-1218.html
Children in Sea Org [18 Dec 1996]
An excerpt from Flag Order 1630 entitled "GOVERNESS" dated 3 December 1968.
_____http://warrior.xenu.ca/1996-0917b.html
PAC CADET ORG / CADET ESTATES ORG ESTABLISHMENT EVAL [17 Sep 1996]
"DUE TO LACK OF IMPORTANCE GIVEN TO CHILDREN ... THE CADET ORG AND CEO HAVE BEEN LEFT IN THE HANDS OF UNQUALIFIED AND (IN SOME CASES) CRIMINAL CHILDREN AND ADULTS..."
_____

As you may have figured out, this is the children's story, but it is also Michael Hobson's story as I know it from personal experience and I hope he understands the reason I tell it is because he's not good at showing who he is to others. Over time, those of us who knew Hobs grew quite fond of him for good reason.

He is a private sort of guy who would never tell his own story. My interactions with Hobson were brief and limited, never intimate or highly personal, so this is just a small window to one time period in his life. I think it's just enough of a glimpse for others to see his personality and character and hopefully end the misunderstandings once and for all. Judge for yourselves, though, I am only describing events.

(to Michael - I've taken this 'hat' on while you recuperate. Rest easy.I've got this. There is a rainbow after the rain.)

I didn't realise Michael Hobson (Hobs) was an EPFer like me until we all got on the bus together headed for the complex. I'd thought he was a permanent nanny and now it bothered me deeply that I'd only seen about five permanent nannies. Was that all there were for all those children until the EPF got there? But there were so many administrative staff there!

It was weeks later when I found out that most of the other nannies had blown , that they blew on a regular basis and there was no harder or more emotionally heartbreaking job in the Sea Org than the post of nanny. The child care organisation had at least 3x the blow rate of any other, which I was later to read in Evals when I finished the EPF and was sent on mission there and read the files.

There were a lot of empty seats on the bus and I saw Hobs take up a 2-seater himself, focused and still writing reports. We would shower on arrival, go to our classes, dinner, and more EPF studies afterward.

I must say, as a never in, that of all the stories written by exes, I have the most problem dealing with the tales of the witnessing of blatant child abuse.

And of course, that is what it was.

I can understand - or at least I think I can understand - the not wanting to "lose one's "eternity" - but cockroaches? lice? known pedophilia?

It is extremely difficult to understand in any way accepting this as part of an organization with which one is involved.

I am not trying to sound harsh. Far from it. But I do have a great difficulty in understanding this aspect of remaining in Cof$. I suppose that if there is nothing else that would convince one that Cof$ members were brainwashed, this would be it.

It is extremely difficult to understand in any way accepting this as part of an organization with which one is involved.

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False presumption.

There were many of us actively fighting to improve the conditions of Sea Org child care that were involved in it at that time. Jan Blount, Sheila Huber, myself and other nannies and most of CCO posted staff were amongst those who were not "in any way accepting this". Would you rather we completely abandoned those children or care for them as best we could under the extremely difficult circumstances that prevailed at the time ?

I must say, as a never in, that of all the stories written by exes, I have the most problem dealing with the tales of the witnessing of blatant child abuse.

And of course, that is what it was.

I can understand - or at least I think I can understand - the not wanting to "lose one's "eternity" - but cockroaches? lice? known pedophilia?

It is extremely difficult to understand in any way accepting this as part of an organization with which one is involved.

I am not trying to sound harsh. Far from it. But I do have a great difficulty in understanding this aspect of remaining in Cof$. I suppose that if there is nothing else that would convince one that Cof$ members were brainwashed, this would be it.

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Not that this should have made any difference but this article speaks to the priorities of the time:

How Scientology’s 1970s infiltration scandal led to the creation of its IAS slush fund
(Authored by Jeffrey Augustine, this essay was originally published by Tony Ortega at the Underground Bunker and is reprinted here for archival purposes)

Hi Deanna,
Sneakster is right. Some of us fought very, very hard to improve things and we took quite a lot of heat and personal abuse for doing so. That is what made it so heartbreaking. The situation went up and down all the time.

None of the infant or toddler floors had lice in that time period that I know. Most nannies worked diligently to keep things sanitary with the meager supplies they had and cared for the children in the absence of parents with as much love as if they were their own.The two perverts were not known about until I went on that mission and by then, the situation was in the hands of church management. General staff and even parents didn't know. The third was reported a few years later.

County health inspectors came and went. The cult had a drill for passing these inspections where nurseries were locked and administrative staff pretended to be nannies. So local agencies were ineffective . In the end all you could do was sacrifice personally for those kids or just take your own and run, run run.

It was an evil cult with no value for the quality of human life. Efforts were thwarted over and over again. It was ugly.

how anyone could even think of joining now with all this information is beyond me.

Hi Deanna,
Sneakster is right. Some of us fought very, very hard to improve things and we took quite a lot of heat and personal abuse for doing so. That is what made it so heartbreaking. The situation went up and down all the time.

None of the infant or toddler floors had lice in that time period that I know. Most nannies worked diligently to keep things sanitary with the meager supplies they had and cared for the children in the absence of parents with as much love as if they were their own.The two perverts were not known about until I went on that mission and by then, the situation was in the hands of church management. General staff and even parents didn't know. The third was reported a few years later.

County health inspectors came and went. The cult had a drill for passing these inspections where nurseries were locked and administrative staff pretended to be nannies. So local agencies were ineffective . In the end all you could do was sacrifice personally for those kids or just take your own and run, run run.

It was an evil cult with no value for the quality of human life. Efforts were thwarted over and over again. It was ugly.

how anyone could even think of joining now with all this information is beyond me.

Click to expand...

I would like to ask a rather contentious question. Now that we have been able to compare notes and watch how things unfolded, if we were the CMO Messengers or people in the Guardian's Office who were tasked to deal with the child care problem at this time, do we think we could have done anything differently or for practical purposes were these people limited to do only what LRH wanted?

Another way of asking this would be if these conditions were kept as they were without changing with the full knowledge and force of LRH regardless of anyone else's efforts?

I remember walking through either the 'Child Care' or 'Cadets' org that was South of the advanced org across Fountain St around 1980 at Big Blue.

It was appalling. All the stuff you've heard before is true. The smell of piss, rotten food, cockroaches, the whole nine yards.

I remember being perplexed. It was so counter to what Hubbard preached. The good thing is; it sowed some of the earliest seeds that allowed me to figure out what the Sea Org really was and was instrumental in my escaping in about a year and a half.

Lol, BB! Ask me a hard one. You and I are on the same page, though Sneakster would probably answer differently.

L Ron Hubbard's policies were written to make money, expand scientology and destroy anyone perceived as an enemy. He was a madman. His cult was just as bad or worse.

The best situation the kids ever had was when they were moved to the CCLA annex, which was an aged care home before that and started out in great shape with all the facilitiese they needed. That quickly degenerated to a nightmare, too.

The GO or OSA or CMO or IAS were not there for the children. Their purposes had nothing to do with compassion, family or humanity.They were there initially to serve and protect L Ron, but eventually became self-serving, greedy bodies in themselves, only to then serve the next greedy dictator.

Loyalty to family is not desired in the cult. Loyalty is to the 'supreme roolah' of the cult and his minions. Greed and lust for power and dominion over others are all that the cult of Scientology practices. It sees children as a burden.

There will never be a time in scientology where the organisation values children and treats them well. Love is not part of scientology, nor is compassion.

Lol, BB! Ask me a hard one. You and I are on the same page, though Sneakster would probably answer differently.

L Ron Hubbard's policies were written to make money, expand scientology and destroy anyone perceived as an enemy. He was a madman. His cult was just as bad or worse.

The best situation the kids ever had was when they were moved to the CCLA annex, which was an aged care home before that and started out in great shape with all the facilitiese they needed. That quickly degenerated to a nightmare, too.

The GO or OSA or CMO or IAS were not there for the children. Their purposes had nothing to do with compassion, family or humanity.They were there initially to serve and protect L Ron, but eventually became self-serving, greedy bodies in themselves, only to then serve the next greedy dictator.

Loyalty to family is not desired in the cult. Loyalty is to the 'supreme roolah' of the cult and his minions. Greed and lust for power and dominion over others are all that the cult of Scientology practices. It sees children as a burden.

There will never be a time in scientology where the organisation values children and treats them well. Love is not part of scientology, nor is compassion.

Click to expand...

I know it sounds like a leading question but at the time both the GO and CMO were putting out draconian decrees regarding children that had people up in arms. I think it is fair to say that a lot of blame was being placed on the individuals who authored, signed off or enforced those but I do not recall anyone crediting LRH as the "Source". Of course, now it is my first inclination but we just didn't dare think it at the time. How could ALL of these people be helpless pawns? Although a lot of Sea Org, especially newbies or people who had little involvement with children or people with children may not have known this was a serious issue, I was aware. It was always something I could never reconcile, after reading LRH's vaunted writings about the value of children and the family to society that this could be so intractable right under his nose in the most on-purpose organization on earth and to add insult to injury - right behind Celebrity Centre's back door. He had to be getting detailed reports. He had his top people on it, yet I never saw a significant fundamental change. Everything seems to have lead inexorably toward what we see today.

There were a few stellar individuals in the CMO as well as the GO who tried to help. Rudy Loewing had like 7 kids in the SO, worked in the GO and personally saw to getting the kids set up at the annex. I remember a veteran CMO messenger who pushed hard for orgs to provide good nannies and pay the CEO.

I see it as an out of control bureaucracy with an entirely missing department for child welfare. The dept doesn't exist and never has. All the good came from individuals, all the bad was through a screwy organisation that served no purpose beyond entertainment through quasi-paranormal concepts and did nothing but serve itself. No controls were ever implemented at top management for abuse or neglect, no facility for abuse of staff, no facility for guaranteed wages, either. The whole thing was always a farce.

Children were neglected because the cult refused to pay certified, trained carers or hire competent personnel for building maintenance or other vital functions. Money was funnelled to management and never came back, no matter whether legal, DM, or anyone else spent it.

L Ron just never gave much thought to the children. Few advices or policies and no strong advocates set up to look out for them and manage things properly. And always insufficient monies allocated to the kids or their carers. They could have hired outside help, you know?

Unfortunately I had some interaction with this aspect of the $cientology kult. However, as mentioned above, maybe it was for the best as it did help to open my eyes to the reality that "these people talk a good game, but....".

After my time on the EPF and expediter in INCOMM I was made Purchaser. No one was more amazed than me being 22 years old and not having any executive experience. I did have supervisory experience in the USAF. Didn't matter anyway, I was the only person in the department and my job was basically driving all over southern California picking up stuff with the INCOMM van for the org. That was OK with me as it kept me out of the org and the drama. It was fun, I had signed checks and I drove around and bought stuff.

Then someone had the bright idea as part of my duties that I pick up the Org's children from school out in Glendale(?), IIRC. Trying to get out to Glendale and do my regular pick-up thing was a hassle traffic-wise. I never had experienced such poorly behaved kids anywhere. Seriously, I wanted to smack a few of those little brats. Definitely a pecking order amongst the brats according to who their parents were, and what position they held in the org, lol. Finally one day it happened I was too far away stuck in traffic and couldn't get to Glendale to pick them up. Big Flap. It was decided that someone else, (lucky chump) would pick up the kids while I kept on doing what I was doing. I was getting shit done so I had a lot of leeway.

As Purchaser I was buying food for the INCOMM dining room. INCOMM had it's own dining area separate from the rest of the PAC crew. I did notice a bit of jealousy among other PAC crew about this. After this went on awhile and no major disasters happened someone had the bright idea that I would also buy food for the berthing thing/hotel/whatever it was on Hollywood Blvd.

An exec guy and I (lowly driver/Purchaser guy) went over there, IIRC, he was supposed to straighten out the kitchen and organize the clusterfuck going on there. I guess we were supposed to survey the damage and formulate some kind of plan to salvage the mess and bring it up to a human level. That place was a horror. Unsupervised kids running around. Did they even go to school? The entire building reeked and just had this sad rundown ghetto vibe going on. The windows were busted out and anyone could basically crawl in from Hollywood Blvd. into the kitchen. Sheesh, what a messed up deal. Salvaging this end of the galaxy but they can't even run a small hotel and keep it clean. I didn't want anything to do with it. So much for confront and all that, lol. Actually if they would have stayed out of our way and let us do what needed to be done we could have fixed it into something approaching normal. But I KNEW that any good we did would be taken credit for by some douchebag higher up in the org. (I had been there three months and already the kult BS had worn off. People beez people no matter what, yo ;-) I distanced myself from this mess, ASAP. I suspected that they were looking for a fall guy or guys.

The Cadet Org? The place they warehouse all the little kids and infants etc. Whatever it was called, me and exec guy go over there one fine day, I guess he got out of dealing with the Hollywood Blvd. clusterfuck somehow and was put in charge of this hot mess. As punishment I think, for avoiding being the fall guy for the other place. What's the kult-speak term..... relegated to the wide open spaces. I went over there first, a 15 year old-ish girl was in charge(?) and she was definitely in a "LRH as sailor valence." Cussing, ordering me around etc. when I was only there to pick up some stuff & recon for exec guy. The place seemed somewhat clean but the complete lack of adult supervision was weird.

Around that time I had more driving duties/make deals for supplies on the phone to do and couldn't hang with exec guy anymore. We used to have a lot of fun. I don't know how long he lasted there as head baby-sitter in chief. I think he was comm-eved.

Well, that's my small involvement in this aspect of the kult. I learned $cientology cares fuck-all about their own kids. And if you try to do anything to improve it they will sabotage you.